ACCOUNTING AND THE ‘DOCTOR - MANAGER RELATIONSHIP’

Some critics of the traditional hospital's organization argue that hospitals are dominated by doctors, who decide clinical issues often unaware of economic dimension of their actions. Hospitals have been exposed to great pressure in order to reduce costs. Consequently, hospital administrators have responded by becoming more aware of the need for management control tools. Accounting systems are implicated in the relationship between professionals and organizations as these systems are designed and implemented to achieve bureaucratic criteria of efficiency and accountability. (Abernethy and Stoelwinder, 1995)